Confidence Read online

  The library was silent and massive. It was mostly concrete; there was little glass in it. It looked like a fortress. It was never clear where the entrances were on the best of days, but on this one the basement door he normally used, under a staircase, was locked. There was no one on the grass pathways, no one on the streets. The heat of the day flattened the landscape, made the distance around to the far side of the building seem enormous, like walking in a desert. He had the illusion of walking on a treadmill without gaining ground.

  He couldn’t tell if the library was closed or open, so he wandered around its walls, trying doors, looking for a way in. When he realized he was too dazed to do so was when he knew, finally, that he was fooling himself, that he was never actually going to go in there again. He would move those books, though, from apartment to apartment, for the rest of his life.

  FUN GIRLS

  Katrina lifted her leg, long as a hockey stick, flashing a sliver of gusset, and stuck it out the cab window. She did this to show the passing street her Italian boots, which had not attracted sufficient attention from Leona and Jennifer. “Do you like them? Milan. Aren’t they lovely?”

  “Do you think Timmy will be home?” said Jennifer, in the front.

  “Who has a phone?” said Leona.

  “I think they’re beautiful,” said Lionel. He sat between Katrina and Leona. He had his hand on the back of Katrina’s neck, under her hair. Leona had one of her legs hooked over his, and was kissing him occasionally on the cheek, in a silly and sisterly way. He knew it didn’t mean anything.

  Jennifer, in the front, said, “No more kissing Lionel before I can have a chance too.”

  “Where are we going, love?” said Leona.

  “I just love them,” said Katrina, wiggling her ankle in the open window. “They’re so soft.”

  “There were a lot of beautiful boots at that party,” said Lionel. “You all have great boots.”

  “He is a good kisser,” said Katrina.

  “He’s a great kisser,” said Jennifer.

  “I haven’t had a real chance yet,” said Leona.

  “Not somewhere too fabulous,” said Jennifer. “No fucking ghastly models. I haven’t felt suicidal all day, not once.”

  “But sweetie, not somewhere too democratic, either, no beer bars or country music, all right? We have to compromise.”

  “Aren’t you just dying for those fried crab ball things?” said Katrina. “Where were they?”

  “Oh! At Sweet! I want those. I want to eat them. I want to eat them all up.”

  “So fabulous,” said Jennifer. “Do you mind if I smoke? I know we’re being terribly loud.”

  The driver smiled and shook his head uninterpretably, as if it would make any difference anyway, as Jennifer was already rolling down her window.

  “What are you afraid of, sweetie? I don’t know what she has against nice places. It’s a phobia. It’s a fabuphobia.”

  “I have no money,” said Leona into Lionel’s ear.

  “That’s what I have,” said Jennifer, blowing out a stream of smoke. “Fabuphobia, that’s exactly what I have.”

  “Is Sweet fabulous?” said Lionel.

  “And I want the gado-gado, and fried wontons.”

  “So it’s back three blocks,” said Leona to the driver. “I know we’re being atrocious, you’re being so sweet.” She brushed the back of the driver’s leather jacket with her knuckles. He was smiling with terror. The cab swung hard around; Lionel was pushed against Leona.

  “G-force,” he said. “I’m a G-man.”

  “I am a pathological fabuphobic.”

  “You are not,” said Lionel.

  “Oh, do I so want those crab balls? I can’t wait.”

  “They are the most lovely food,” said Leona, “ever created in history.”

  “Is it expensive?” said Lionel.

  “It’s super not. It’s like free. Is it not free, sweetie?”

  “It’s almost free. Lionel, can I use your phone?”

  Lionel watched the street flash by; other cars were missing them like asteroids. His teeth were numb.

  “Timmy,” Katrina was saying into his phone, “call me, sweetness. Lionel, what’s the number?”

  He didn’t know how he had ended up with the fun girls. He had thought he would have one drink at this stupid gallery opening and then he had been in the washroom with Katrina and now his teeth were numb and they were on their way to spending a billion dollars; they were on their way to spending the kind of money that you would need an act of parliament to approve. You couldn’t phone up the fun girls and get them to come out with you; if you wanted them to come to a party they were too exhausted, they talked of staying home with gay friends and watching sitcoms. You never knew where they were going to be, you had to just be in their path. Sometimes they decided to take you with them and sometimes they didn’t. If they swept you up along, it was on their terms.

  He swallowed the nasty taste. Now his throat was closing up and he began to feel the acceleration of time or whatever it is that happens, that high whine of the turbocharger kicking in, the sense that the DJ has upped the pace of the beat. Bright cars were hurtling past. It was unclear how the driver, a tiny, dark, shrunken man, was navigating between them, but they were safe from death with him.

  Katrina pulled her leg in and draped it over Lionel’s thigh. He wanted to touch the textured pantyhose on her knee, but didn’t.

  When they had surrounded him at the gallery—not a gallery, really, a warehouse with its walls quickly painted white and the hangar door pulled up so the cold air filled it—he had had the feeling you got when the older girls in school decided to play with you for fun (even though Lionel was ten years older than these women, he still felt younger): they tell you you’re so cute and then laugh. It was as if they were ruffling his hair.

  Once, a year before, in some restaurant, he had expressed mild reservations to Leona when she had kissed him rather firmly on the lips in front of Treena (when he had been seeing Treena) and Leona had said, suddenly cold, “Honey, tell her to relax, why would I come on to you when I have that?” and pointed to Marco, her club-owning boyfriend, which had made Lionel sink and feel old.

  In the bathroom at the gallery, Katrina had been quite businesslike too. She made him check his nose in the mirror and sent him out again.

  It was after, by the bar, that they had had their who-can-kiss-Lionel-the-best contest. A lot of people had looked at that.

  Only Katrina and Jennifer had actually played that game, but played quite hard at it. Lionel could tell that Leona did not want to play, which was disappointing again.

  The cab stopped outside a corner restaurant in a basement that glowed orange. The women spilled out. Katrina murmured to Lionel through the window, “Tip him a lot,” and then said to the driver, “You’re so sweet, were we too terrible?”

  They went down the stairs to the restaurant and Lionel paid the cab and followed them. The driver winked at him and drove off manically.

  Sweet was all red. Six months before that, all restaurants had been white, like airports. Now all restaurants were red or orange or amber. Lionel thought that this particular place had once been white, even quite recently, but he wasn’t sure if he had been here.

  They sat in a circular booth and the tattooed cowgirl waitress gave them menus, and then Leona and Katrina told her that her boots were wonderful and her hair was wonderful and they just loved all of her and did she have those crab balls; they all ordered vodka drinks.

  “Look,” said Katrina, holding the menu, “what did I tell you, is this not like free? It’s free.”

  Jennifer leaned towards Lionel and murmured, “I don’t have any money.”

  Then Katrina and Leona took off to the washroom again, while Jennifer called someone named Timmy on Lionel’s cellphone and left Lionel’s number with him, and then everyone was back and they all rubbed up against Lionel and talked about kissing again.

  “Look,” said Lionel,
“there’s Amanda and Ian, they were at the gallery. Actually there are a lot of the same people here.”

  “Let’s ignore them,” said Leona.

  “I did a radio doc with him once,” said Lionel, “with Ian. I bet he wonders what I’m doing here.”

  “We should kiss you in front of him,” said Katrina.

  “Okay,” said Lionel. “Who’s first.”

  Jennifer leaned over and kissed him quickly on the lips.

  “Come on,” said Lionel. “Really. I’ll show you how to kiss.”

  “All right. Really?”

  “Sure.”

  Katrina and Leona leaned forward with interest.

  “We’re really going to do this, though.”

  “Yes.” Lionel put his hand behind her neck and drew her head to him. He wet his lips, then brushed them against hers, then closed his eyes and opened his mouth against hers. He played with her tongue as best he could. He was just starting to relax into it when she pulled away.

  “All right,” said Jennifer, “you’ve made your point.” She got up to go to the washroom. She asked for Leona’s purse to take with her.

  Leona and Katrina were whispering something together and Lionel asked them what it was. They didn’t answer.

  “It’s not so much the size,” Katrina was saying, “it’s the fit. It’s when it’s like a beautiful boot that really fits you.”

  “Although let’s not kid ourselves,” said Leona, smoking, “size does matter.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Marco almost hurts. All the time.”

  Lionel decided he didn’t want to hear any more of this conversation. He watched the cowgirl approach them and was taken with her belly piercing, which was exactly the same little snake as Treena’s had been. Jennifer was also back and watching Lionel stare at the waitress.

  They ordered seven plates of food. Lionel gave the girl his credit card and watched her swing away.

  Katrina said, “She’s cute.”

  Jennifer said, “In a kind of stripper way, a kind of child-bride stripper way. Lionel likes that.”

  “Can we smoke here?”

  “Sweetie, we can do anything we want.”

  “Is that Ian the one you heard that thing about?”

  “What thing? Oh that.”

  “What thing?”

  “Huge.”

  “What? Him? He is?”

  “Like unnatural. A firehose.”

  “Like some kind of deformity.”

  “A cripple.”

  “Lionel, what’s the matter? You look like you’re going to cry.”

  “We boring you, Lionel? Or are you going to throw up?”

  Lionel was carefully staring out at the crowd at the bar, which now included Ian and Amanda and Anita Wheelright and Anuparna Dutta, from the previous party. They kept glancing over and looking away again as if embarrassed, or at least that was how it seemed to Lionel.

  “Lionel is angry because of that thing I said about strippers, because he’s thinking of his little child-bride, which is sweet.”

  Lionel was trying not to feel sick. He didn’t know how Jennifer knew about the stripping. He supposed, then, that everyone knew. He squeezed his hands into balls and stared doggedly at Anuparna Dutta.

  “Don’t be upset, Lionel, it was a silly thing to say, I didn’t mean anything. I think she’s quite sweet. And it’s so sweet that you’re so stricken, you’re like a little puppy.” Jennifer leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and so did Leona and Katrina.

  It was impossible for Jennifer to know, even if she did know about the strip club and the lap dancing and who knew what else, how much pain it caused him to even remember it for one second. So he had to concentrate now on not feeling bereft, which was a difficult thing to do. It had started with the waitress and now was like a gas in the air.

  The seven courses arrived and everybody enthusiastically tasted one thing and left the rest. Lionel tried a satay skewer but could not finish it. The piles of noodles looked like snakes and insects, so no one touched them. There were four crab balls, which got eaten, so they ordered another plate of them.

  “That was absolutely the most delicious thing ever produced in the history of humanity.”

  “I’m not hungry anymore.”

  “And it was so free! Was it not free?”

  “I need to smoke so much more.”

  “I need to smoke my head off. I need to smoke the fuck out of myself.”

  “I’m just asking, was that not the best thing?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Did Timmy get back to you?”

  “Is there anyone else we can call?”

  “I better call Marco.”

  After Lionel paid, he found them on the sidewalk outside. Katrina was talking on his cellphone. Leona had to go home to Marco. Katrina had to go to a thing for breast cancer. Jennifer said, “We’ll go to my house,” and put her arm in Lionel’s.

  “I have to crash,” said Lionel.

  “Bye love, sweetie, you’re wonderful.”

  “Oh,” said Katrina, leaning out of a cab window, “your phone.” She tossed it to him.

  “No you don’t,” said Jennifer, “I have goodies.”

  “Oh. What kind?”

  “Wait till you get there.” She had stepped into the street and was hailing a cab.

  “Can you relax me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” He opened the cab door for her.

  Jennifer lived in a condo that was all open except for a sleeping loft. There were books everywhere, and neat stacks of students’ essays. Her computer was on, a lamp burning next to it, an art-history book open under the light, her reading glasses folded on the text. Her computer screen spun three-dimensional silver words. If you looked closely you could read them: I’m stupid, I’m smarting. The glasses sitting in the lamplight made Lionel feel strange: They reminded him of Jennifer’s other self, which was considerably more frightening than her fun girl self, and he was not sure he wanted to be here for it. He wondered what it would have been like to have her as a professor, or a T.A., which was more accurate in her case, and whether he would have lusted after her.

  He sat in a leather chair and she brought him straight vodka on ice, and another glass of water, and she kicked off her pointy, feline boots and curled her legs up on the sofa and lit a cigarette and threw her hair back. She pulled on the cigarette and let it out in a vertical jet, her eyes closed. It looked like the most pleasurable thing anyone had ever felt.

  “You choose the music.”

  He got up, sluicing the burnt taste of vodka through his teeth, and scanned the CD rack. It was all full of female singers. He walked along a bookshelf, looking for fiction. There was quite a lot of fiction, surprisingly, and not all of it, not even mostly, by Sylvia Plath types. He was pleased. “Have you read this? This Updike?”

  Jennifer was kneeling on the floor now, opening a plastic pouch and shaking the powder onto the glass of the coffee table. She shook two orange pills out from a plastic prescription bottle, and they bounced and spun.

  “What are we having?” said Lionel, turning back to the bookshelf. It seemed as if he shouldn’t watch, as if it was impolite.

  “Flesh.”

  “Is that that upper-downer thing?” He couldn’t not watch.

  “It’s just Xanax. It’s best of all with Clonazepam, but I’m out. I call it Flesh because. . .” She licked a finger and picked up some residue with it. She rubbed it onto her gums. She leaned over to her purse and pulled out her wallet. “Because the Xanax is orange, and you mix it with the blow and it goes a lovely flesh colour. And because. . .” She pulled a credit card from her wallet and crushed the pills against the glass. “It makes you feel all touchy. Like you want to touch flesh.” She scraped the pill powder into a pile. Then she pushed the pile of coke into it. “Eros,” she said. She mixed the orange powder into the coke. “Thanatos.”

  “All right.” Lionel yawned. “Hey! I c
an’t believe this! You have Firbank! What the hell do you have this for?”

  “Someone gave it to me.”

  “Have you read it? Oh, you must. You absolutely must.” He pulled it down from the shelf. “Once you start, you’ll see. You absolutely cannot stop.”

  He opened it and sat on the couch behind her, his knees against her back. She rolled up a bill, leaned, and snorted two lines. “Listen. Listen to this. Looking gloriously bored, Miss Miami Mouth gaped up into the boughs of a giant silk cotton-tree. In the lethargic noontide—”

  “Here.”

  Lionel kneeled by the table and took the bill. “Ow. It burns”

  “A little.”

  They both sat on the sofa, sniffing and wiping their noses. Jennifer pulled her knees up again and leaned her head on his shoulder. He picked up the book. “There’s some really wicked dialogue. Let me find this—”

  “Let me read this first page.”

  “Hang on. After I go. I just want to find this.”

  She pulled the book from his hands and read, frowning.

  He sneezed.

  Then he rolled his head onto the back of the sofa and looked at the ceiling. There were circles of orange lamplight on it. The apartment seemed deadly quiet as she read.

  He slipped off the sofa and went to the stereo. He found some Bach violin and put it on.

  When he sat with her again, he saw that she had put the book down on the coffee table without marking the page.

  “Did you like it?”

  “Yes. It’s funny.” She said this without colour.

  Lionel rested his head again and let the music thread its way into him. The circles of lamplight on the ceiling were still. The corners of the walls were sharp lines. The violin overlaid them as if by pattern. They fit together. He said, “Did you know that Bach had twenty children?”